The invention relates generally to electronic locking systems and deals more particularly with a management apparatus which participates in the coding of key cards to ensure that a key card provides access through intervening doors to each of the doors having locks selected for operation by the key card.
Electronic locking systems previously known include key cards having magnetic data bits which represent a lock combination, a central computer, a key card encoder for writing data on the key cards, and a multiplicity of electronic locks. Each of the locks is equipped with a reader to read the magnetic data bits on the card and a microprocessor to process the data. If the lock data matches a lock combination stored within the lock, the lock may be opened or updated with a new combination.
Electronic memory in the lock may contain a plurality of the lock combinations associated respectively with a plurality of access levels. For example, in a high security industrial plant, one combination stored in the lock may correspond to a key issued to one employee having a low level security clearance and another combination may correspond to a key issued to another employee having a higher level of security clearance.
In a dormitory building application where there is a locked external door controlling access to the building, a locked internal door controlling access to each floor, and a plurality of locked internal private, dormitory rooms on each floor, it may be desirable that the resident of each dormitory room has a key card which opens the lock of the external door, the lock of one floor door and the lock of one private door leading to one dormitory room. In previously known systems, an operator decides which door lock should be accessible by each key card and then programs a computer to encode the key cards accordingly. However, mistakes occur and occasionally, a key card does not provide access to the desired dormitory room through all intervening doors having the locks.
Accordingly, a general object of the present invention is to provide a management system which facilitates the process of encoding key cards to ensure that a key card provides access through intervening doors to each of the doors having locks selected for operation by the key card.
A more specific object of the invention is to provide a management system of the foregoing type which initially allows an operator to define each of the doors in a building and which doors provide access to which other doors and then verify that a path exists from an external door of the system to each internal door either directly or via other internal doors.
Still another object of the invention is to identify problems of the foregoing types and then assist the operator in correcting the problems.
Still other objects of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description and claims.